Metroid Prime: The Kev Hunters
by Mr. Monty
Summary: After following the Ed's to Double D's new time machine, Kevin finds himself light years from home as he is swept up in a competition for something called "The Ultimate Power". A spin off of Metroid Prime: Ed Hunters and takes place in the Metroid Prime Hunters universe.
1. Prologue

_**Prologue:**_

_**Just another Summer Day**_

"Step right up, folks! Get your cheap fast food here at Ed-to-Go!"

"...Dorks"

The groan that threatened to escape a certain young man proved to be unkempt as it made it's way out anyway, making the boy who uttered it look at his clock in frustration. It was barely past nine o' clock and Kevin was already in a bad mood. Sure, anything having to do with Eddy and his two dorky friends was enough to set him off, but waking him up before it was even past ten was a sin that the Ed's would have to pay later that day.

Not even wanting to put up with trying to go back to his dreamland, Kevin grabbed his hat that set right next to his clock and put it on backwards, his three red hairs becoming erect and sticking up through the gap and plastic adjuster that rubbed against his forehead, a feeling Kevin had been familiar with ever since his dad had bought it for him. He smiled at the memory but once again heard Eddy yelling, sounding like his voice was enhanced with a mega phone of sorts, which only annoyed him even more.

As Kevin changed from his night time attire, a white muscle shirt and some grey shorts, to his usual day time attire he remembered the first time he was scammed by the three mischief makers of the cul-de-sac. It was the day his father had bought him his first bike and when he was test driving it around the lane he was approached by Eddy who promised him that him and his friends could "make that baby shine like a three hundred dollar nickel." Of course, him being young and naïve at the time, he gladly let the trio handle the duties of shining his new bike. Curiosity did not kill the cat, but the cat did end up pummeling the curiosity to a pulp.

As he was reminiscing, he did not realize he was fully dressed and already heading out the door. Only slightly confused at how distracted he had been, he made his way to where a makeshift counter rested in front of the three-haired Ed boy's house. Noticing that all of the neighborhood kids had already been suckered in and was actually in a line to eat this crud was bad enough, but to see that Nazz had been suckered in just made his blood boil. Nobody messed with her and got away with it. Not that he had a crush on her or anything like that. The notion of something like that would just be ridiculous.

After joining in behind Nazz, she turned to greet him with a smile, something that set his heart aflutter every time he seen it.

"Hey Kev, what's up?" The preppy girl asked, always wearing the same beautiful smile. Kevin simply shrugged and smiled back at her.

"Eh, you know the usual. Just got out of bed and the dorks are already up to somethin'." After Kevin said 'dorks' he fixed Eddy with a glare, who was too caught up in a conversation with Johnny to notice. Nazz just giggled-another thing that made Kevin's heart sigh in happiness.

"Well, who knows, maybe this time they are being honest about something." If this person had been anyone other than Nazz he would have laughed and said something sarcastic, but since this _was _Nazz he just shrugged again and noticed that it was already Nazz's turn in line. After she ordered something called an "Ed-ka-bob", she walked over to sit at one of the picnic tables with Sarah and Jimmy. He noticed Eddy giving her a lovey look and slammed his hand on the counter, causing Eddy to jump in surprise with a yelp and fix him with a glare.

"What do you want, shovel-chin?" Eddy asked in frustration. Kevin looked at the cruddy menu and simply raised his fist in the three haired Ed's face.

"How about a knuckle sandwich, you dork?" Kevin smirked inwardly at his witty joke and waited for Eddy's response, who was too busy writing something down on his small note pad, something stupid no doubt to counter Kevin's insult without actually saying it to his face. Typical dork.

Kevin simply went to sit with Nazz, hearing Eddy yell at Ed to go get food from his house. The chinless dork yelled something back and skipped his way into the house, leaving Double D in a nervous wreck and began to talk to Eddy. Kevin barely listened to Nazz's conversation with the brats but he heard something about "Mr. YumYum" and paintings or something along those lines.

Just as he was about to add to the conversation topics about his new bike repairs, the ground began to spasm and shake with unbelievable force, causing the kids to stand up from their tables and panic.

"My Great NaNa is headed this way!" Rolf yelled in horror as he began to shake in his shoes. "Run for your lives!" Everyone began to panic and run around like terrified chimps. Except for Kevin of course, sure he yelped in fright a little but he never screamed, that was for sissies. Nazz was gripping his arm so hard that he thought she was going to rip it off, which he would not be mad at. Sometimes the babes just love the muscles that much.

"What's going on Kevin?!" She screamed in his ear in sheer panic. He was about to answer her back, when he seen the chinless dork step outside Eddy's house...with the support beams to his house in tow.

"Let's get out of here!" Kevin yelled as no one even considered disobeying. The kids bolted in all directions as the short dorks house collapsed in a cloud of dirt, dust and debris. Everyone made their way to the closest house, which just so happened to be Kevin's, to take shelter in while the chaos settled down outside.

Kevin kept his back to the door and tried to regain his breath from the sprint. Everyone else was coughing to try and remove the soot from their throats and confirming their safety. Kevin opened his door to see Eddy smacking Ed's head into the ground, looking as red as Rolf's beets with Double D looking to try and defuse the situation.

"Kevin, what are they doing now?" Jimmy asked with his usual shaky and anxious voice. Kevin shut the door and turned back to the group.

"Placing the blame on one another, as always." Kevin rolled his eyes and took off his hat to dust it off, causing some soot to fly off and fall onto his carpet, making sure to remind himself to clean it up later. He opened the door and noticed that the mood had taken a complete one-eighty. Eddy was now dragging Double D down the street with Ed following close behind with a look of pure glee etched onto his face.

"Kevin, are you going to beat them up for us?" Jimmy asked, his voice gathering a bit more courage. Kevin smirked at the notion of giving those dweebs, especially Eddy, a pounding they had well earned at this point. However, Kevin was quite surprised that _Jimmy_ was the one trying to get him to ruffle the Ed's feathers. Eh, guess even fluffy had a spine underneath that marshmallow exterior.

"You bet Fluffy." Kevin said. The kids, except for Nazz, began to cheer him on as he once again opened the door to leave. Before he shut the door, he turned back to the kids and made an announcement.

"My fridge and movie case is open to you guys. Enjoy yourselves while I go pound some dorks." Kevin smiled as the kids cheered once again, boosting his ego considerably as he shut the door and silently followed the Ed's on his ever awesome bike.

If only he had remembered to pack an extra drink before he left.

* * *

Tracking the dorks down had not been hard, with Ed's constant gushing over something Kevin could not make out from his distance and hearing Eddy yelling 'Shut up!" every ten seconds. After arriving to Double D's place, Eddy kicked his door in and made his way inside, with the chinless monobrow close behind. He parked his bike in some nearby bushes across the street and silently made his way to the right side of Double D's house. He decided not to go through the front door, just in case one of them was keeping watch. He wanted to do this with stealth and felt that if he did so he would prove he was much smarter than those three dorks combined. He always knew he was, but this was to prove it to _them_.

As he was heading to the back door, he heard a commotion coming from a small window near the ground and looked down at it, most likely being a window for the basement. After crouching down, he was stunned at what he was looking at.

Sitting in the northeast corner of the basement was a seven foot tall, chrome colored, cylinder shaped object that had all kinds of buttons and other doohickeys that Kevin had no idea how to work.

"Man..I knew Double Dork was smart but...jeez." Kevin just lay in the grass, eying the strange contraption with a sense of wonder. He wondered if he could convince the smart dork to upgrade his trusty bike. Ed seemed to be having fun inside the contraption, looking at the small terminals that filled the device and ran back to his friends, picked them both up and headed inside the machine. Double D recovered from being dumped on the floor and began working one of the terminals.

"What are you dorks up to?" Kevin asked himself as he adjusted his hat, deciding to wait until they were all distracted before making his move. As he watched Ed shove Double D out of the way to fool around with the terminal as well, he began to formulate his plan for which Ed to beat up first. Eddy was the most likely candidate and then he would move on to Ed and maybe Double D, if he did not keep his mouth shut that is.

As he was distracting himself at the prospect of pummeling the three dorks, he began to see and hear the light show going on inside Double D's basement. The machine was rocking around and sparking with electricity as the device began to flash and crackle. Kevin was about to let out a 'what the?' but Double D beat him to the punch of yelling instead of talking.

_"The time machine is warping us ten-thousand light-years into outer space!"_

After Double D had yelled this statement, the basement began to light up with a crimson light so bright that Kevin had to shield his face from the seizure inducing rave. He began to hear whirring sounds emit from the basement window as the entire place was flooded with a blue light so intense that it even flooded the outside. After a few seconds everything quieted down. The birds resumed their chirping and the wind began to howl once again.

Kevin wiped his eyes and looked into the basement. No more Ed's. The only thing that remained was that weird contraption Double sock head had built, albeit a little bit singed. He wiped his eyes once again and decided to ditch his sneaking technique. He crouched down and kicked open the window. He dropped in and seen the burn marks made all around the walls from the burst of electricity from seconds earlier.

"Come out you dorks!" Kevin yelled out to the empty basement and looked in all directions. No response, just the calming whirrs of the machine and the echoes of his voice from the walls. Kevin did not give up though, he looked under the tarp that once covered the machine, behind the machine, inside it and even throughout the sockheaded dork's house but there was no sign of the trio of con-men.

"Where the heck did they go? If they think their getting away from their beating then they are sadly mistakin'." Kevin proclaimed and punched his palm. He decided to check out the machine once again and noticed that the once blank terminals were back to life and the lights on the device were flashing once more, perhaps signaling that it was ready to use again.

Kevin shrugged and was about to climb out through the window again. Bummer, he was going back to kids without so much as a tooth from one of those dweebs. Well, he could lie and say they ran in terror as soon as they saw him. He was pretty sure they would buy it. As he was about to leave, however, he recalled the words Double D had said before the amateur rave had started.

_The time machine is warping us ten-thousand light-years into outer space!_

The sock head had said something about a time machine? Really? Kevin raised a dubious eyebrow and climbed back into the dorky sanctuary. Well, seeing as how he had nothing better to do, he began to search for any indication that this was indeed a time machine. He did not have to look long though, as when he looked up to the top of the device he seen a halfway peeled off label that clearly read 'Time Machine'.

"Wow, thanks dork." He chuckled and then the realization hit him like a dump truck full of bricks. A time machine. A real time machine! This thing could send him to any point in time that he desired!

"No way!" Kevin yelled and ran inside to mess around with the terminals to try and go back to the time he wanted. He could go back and stop those dorks from being….nah, that was _way_ too cold. Even for him.

"Double Dork is so cool right now, man!" He yelled in excitement. Sure, he would forget he said it if he seen the sock head again but, at the moment, he truly meant it. That dork actually invented something totally radical for once!

"So..uh..how do you work this stupid thing?" Kevin adjusted one of the knobs a little and pushed a button but nothing he did seemed to alter the machine in any way. Impatience winning over common sense, Kevin pounded on the console and kicked it, causing a spark of electricity to jump out and startle him, knocking him down on his butt.

Before he could so much as yell in surprise, the machine began to once again flash and spark around the basement, creating more holes and burns on the walls. When Double Dork got back, Kevin was sure he would have a heart attack at the sight. The red lights began to flash once again as the machine shook harder and harder, acting like a low key washing machine of sorts. The jolts of electricity and lights got so bad that he fell back from the machines seismic activity, causing him to hit his head on the terminal, knocking him out instantly.

Unbeknownst to him, the machine had just finished its process and warped the jock to an unknown destination. Thousands of light years from Peach Creek, the cul-de-sac, Nazz and everyone else who looked up to him. And even worse, away from his _bike._

And he did not even have breakfast yet.


	2. Chapter One

_**Chapter One: **_

_**A Jock and the Not So Lonely Space Station**_

The constant rave of lights had ceased for at least an hour now, but Kevin was currently too unconscious to notice.

After a few more minutes of silence, Kevin began to groan and did the first thing on instinct; which was rubbing his aching head that now had a nasty bruise on it. At least his hat was still on, that was all that mattered to him. After adjusting his second most prized possession, and inspecting it for damage, he looked up to notice something that was just a _little_ bit strange.

He was no longer in Double D's basement, that much was certain. Instead of seeing the basement window across from him, he was now looking at a strange wall that rest at the end of a ramp. The wall seemed to have a blue, human sized, glowing, triangle engraved in with a small blue strobe light resting above it. Seeing something unfamiliar in front of him made Kevin glance around the rest of his surroundings. What he seen made him utter a simple word.

"Dude…"

The first thing he noticed was the windows resting a floor above him, which could be accessed by a set of stairs to his immediate right, and the multiple stars that dotted across the black nothingness beyond. The floor below him was silver in color and looked to be a sort of landing pad, for what he could not discern since there appeared to be no clear space for a plane to land and, upon looking up, he noticed a rather wide octagon shaped hole in the ceiling that appeared to be sealed shut. Okay, a helicopter could fit through that...right? On the edges of the landing pad laid four ramps, one of which lead him to the triangle wall. The left ramp had another set of stairs which acted as another way to get to the second level of the room. The route behind him seemed to lead to a sealed hole in the wall, at least which is what it resembled. To his right rested yet another ramp that lead to the set of stairs that went up to the next floor, containing the windows. Geez, the dorks who built this place really wanted you to look outside.

However, what was more alerting was something that was _not _there. Behind him to be exact. Kevin looked and seen that there was not a speck of the time machines existence.

"Okay. Not funny man. Who designs a time machine that doesn't come with you? Even that geeky show Nazz's dad watched called...um...Doctor something or another did that!" He sighed in mental exhaustion and adjusted his hat.

"Alright, calm down Kev. Calm down man. There's got to be another time machine somewhere around here. I mean this place looks like something out of a sci-fi movie."

After inspecting the area, Kevin noticed something he should have seen instantly. In front of him was a terminal that looked to be about the size of his bike, but a computer it was not, because it did not have a keyboard. That made a computer didn't it? Maybe it was one of those weird touch screen computers from the movies, or something like that. He shrugged apathetically and approached it, seeing as how he had nothing else to do anyway. He looked over the blue, glowing screen which was decorated with some kind of text he did not recognize.

"Looks easier than Chinese." He rolled his eyes and touched the screen, hoping to get some response from it. Luckily, the monitor sprung to life and above his hand, he could see some more alien text turn to words he could finally recognize.

_Scanning... Scan complete. _

Kevin lifted his hand off the monitor and was amazed to see some more dark blue English text go across the screen. As the words continued to run across the screen Kevin realized that he was taking this entire situation pretty well. He could be centuries away from the present time period and he was just acting like he always did. Well, it was probably better for his sanity if he kept a cool head. Besides, he willingly went into the time machine and activated it, albeit with a little more force than necessary. Speaking of the time machine, he wondered what time period he was in anyway, it looked futuristic enough so maybe he warped a little bit _too _far.

He looked back down and seen that blue text was all over the screen. He began to read aloud.

_Greetings, Bi-pedal Homosapian. _

_This space station, in orbit directly above Alinos, is the primary repository of the combined knowledge of Alimbic scholars, scientist, and historians._

Well, this explained a lot. Kevin looked at the windows again to see the stars and the, now confirmed to be, blackness of space. The jocks head was reeling from this new information but before he could freak out, he clasped a bulge in his left pocket which seemed to calm his nerves. He pulled out a small socket wrench which was only about nine inches long. While it would have just seemed like a tool to any other boy, this was actually the first socket wrench he ever got from his father. He smiled at the memories it brought back, from fixing his bike for the first time and beating the Ed's over the head with it for messing up his bike. He sighed in relief and put the wrench back in its proper place.

He began to process the fact that he was on a real life space station in the middle of the cold nothingness of space. However, he could not figure out what the word "Alimbic" meant and he did not know a planet named "Alinos" even existed. Maybe in the future, people could lasso planets and drag them near Earth. It could happen!

He took some deep breaths and turned around to face the weird wall thing with lights above it. Taking his first step, he noticed that the floor lit up a little every time he took a step. Ignoring it, he walked down the ramp and heard his footsteps echoing in the ever-silent room. Kevin was so used to being around the noise of his neighborhood and friends that it was slightly unsettling to be in such a quiet place. But hey, if he would have wound up teleporting with the Ed's it would have been far worse. After reaching the bottom of the ramp he noticed a small cube that came up to his ankle with the same blue color as the monitor he had just left behind.

Being confused felt like it as going to be his most common feeling in this unfamiliar place and Kevin did not like not being in the know. He kicked the small cubic object in a fit of frustration, another mood he felt familiar with thanks to the ever present antics of the Ed's. Speaking of the dorks, where were they? Not that he cared in the slightest, you know he had a reputation to keep up, but he still felt a pang of curiosity overcome him as he began to wonder. What in the world would those losers want with a time machine?

However, before he could so much as grow a sympathy bone, his minds constant wondering failed to warn him of the incoming wall that was literally a foot away when he began to think.

"Son of a-!" Before he could utter the explicative, Kevin noticed that the wall he had bumped into had disappeared to leave only a big triangle shaped hole in the wall. Confusion once again rented the somewhat crowded space in his mind and he jumped to his feet. He rubbed his head for a few seconds before he pressed on through the newly opened passageway.

Speaking of which, where did that triangle in the wall go?

* * *

After going through the aforementioned snake hallway and another short passage, Kevin noticed that the doors in this place seemed to function like they did at grocery stores and other retails, as in they were a sort of futuristic automatic door that operated on motion. Although he had seen them before, he had never seen a triangle shaped door before in his life.

Although, a triangle shaped door was not something he was worried about at the moment. He was more worried about how much of a shine this place took to the color blue and green. The room he had ventured in half-interestingly had a big piece of machinery in the center of it and, surprise, some more blue lights on it. Going down the small ramp that lay in front of him Kevin approached the hunk of machinery and noticed some giant tubes jutting out of the top of it with some orange light streaming through them.

"I swear, if that time machine warped me to some even _more _futuristic version of Double D's house, I am going to pound that dork and then ask him to send me back home." Kevin took a deep breath and clenched his fist. He would save his anger for the dorks, after all, this was all their fault. Them and their stupid time machines.

Behind the hunk of metal was another window and even a portion of the floor presenting the endless void of space along with the beautiful twinkling stars that dotted almost every inch of the black expanse. Not that Kevin cared in the slightest about that kind of sappy stuff. He turned around to face the rather expansive room and seen a metal ramp that led to the now two, Kevin discovered, giant cube machines with the pipes attached. Deciding to humor his curiosity, the jock ascended the ramp and turned left to see a split in the path with a clear floor taking the place of the metal that lay behind him. Kevin took the left path and seen what looked like another computer terminal resting on the base of one of the orange pipes.

The jock had no idea what to do to get it working, so he instead just started to mash buttons until something happened. Incredibly, by sheer luck, Kevin managed to make a holographic message appear on the base of the orange pipe.

_"The secret to the Ultimate Power lies in the Alimbic Cluster." Author and origin unknown_

Ultimate Power? What the heck was this about? The jock read the message over and over again to get a sense of what it meant. Unfortunately, he was not able to find any hidden meaning or metaphor, he hated metaphors. He turned away from the screen and leaned against the terminal for support while he pondered his problem.

He recalled seeing the word 'Alimbic' on that terminal he read when he first woke up and apparently this station was a place that stored knowledge from scientist and all that dorky stuff. Drawing conclusions with little evidence was something Kevin was pretty good at, seeing as how he pieced together everything leading to the Ed's almost every time. But this was a little trickier. All he knew is that he had seen two of the same words on the same ship and apparently some kind of 'Ultimate Power' resided in the Alimbic Cluster.

All of this thinking was making Kevin even more impatient. He just wanted to find a time machine and get home before those dorks did. He really wished Double D would have come here instead; he would piece together everything in a split second. What a dork. Kevin sighed and did not bother going down the other catwalk, not even caring if another computer terminal rested on top of the other cube. He had done enough thinking for today.

He descended the opposite ramp and went towards yet another triangle shaped door. It looked a little different than the rest, mostly because of the small holographic looking button next to it and the fact that it had a red, swirling triangle in the middle of it. Kevin tried to activate the door via motion but learned that this would not work, seeing as how he bumped into it instead of opening it. He growled in frustration and looked towards the small orange-ish holograph.

The jock reached for the supposed button and found that, despite its holographic appearance, it felt like a solid object of sorts. Kevin pushed it and the sounds of something powering down filled the air. The mysterious red, swirling, triangle dissipated and the door lit up with a blue light. Guessing that this meant it was unlocked; Kevin invited himself in and went through an orange hued chamber. Something told Kevin that he would hate the colors blue and orange after he got out of here.

After another journey down another uninteresting, metal plated hall, Kevin stepped through the door. He was about to observe the room when he heard the door rather forcefully close behind him. When he turned to look at it in surprise, he seen that another red triangle appeared in the center and started to spin, signaling that it locked behind him. Why in the world would it lock?! Kevin sighed with venom clear in his breath and turned around, only to find that he had some new friends waiting to meet him. Four floating eyeball looking...drones were staring right at him. Spherical in shape with a giant orange eye that seemed to track his every movement. Kevin was about to question what the heck they were, when he remembered that he was in the freakin' future. So, of course they would have little death drones to come and greet you. The little buggers remained motionless as the big eye that occupied half of their faces changed from red to blue to yellow to orange and almost every other color in between. This originally tense filled encounter had turned into a boring staring contest, and Kevin hated staring contest.

The jock was not one to be patient and all of that adrenaline he had in his system from a few seconds ago was begging him to move. He took a small step to the right and the four big eyes watched every movement of his legs. Inching along the wall until he was in front of another small ramp, Kevin looked and seen another door resting at the top and, like the door he had came through, it was locked by the annoying red triangle. Just great, and to make matters worse he had not seen another one of those buttons to deactivate it. He looked up to see that his mechanical roommates had kept a fashionable yellow as their main eye color and anyone who had common sense would know that it was probably not a good idea to try anything else, however, Kevin was growing impatient. Seeing no other options, Kevin tried verbal demands.

"Would you dorks mind opening the door?" The ever present sound of silence was his answer. He furrowed his brow and rolled his eyes, of course it was never that easy. So, he voted for a little more force instead.

"Hey! Didn't you hear me? Open that door!" He was now pointing in the direction of the door in question. Silence once again met his demands. The jock groaned at the bots stupidity and went to just walk under them, ignoring that their eyes had turned crimson and that a strange yellow aura was now radiating from their spherical bodies. Kevin reached the door and prepared to hit it with all of his might.

_Pow!_

Just as his fist made contact, something had flown past his head and hit the wall next to him, leaving a big yellow stain where it had hit. Kevin whirred around and seen that the droid's eyes had now went from the cautionary yellow, to the aggressive red, leaving little to the imagination as to what they were going to do. He seen that they began to glow yellow again and then looked at the stain they had left.

"Oh _crud_!"

Leaving no time to think, he acted on basic instinct and dived to the left towards a rather large metal crate. He heard another volley of those yellow colored shots hit where he once stood, which was now occupied by the wall that had been behind him. He jumped to his feet and took shelter behind the big steel crate, which was now acting as his one safeguard from death as it took the continuous shots being aimed in his direction.

How he wished he had brought his slingshot. And his bike. And some breakfast.

"This sucks so hard, man!" Being too panicked to think of anything else, Kevin waited until he heard their shots halt and jumped out, charging the closest one head on with his wrench at the ready.

_Whack!_

Contact! The little drone that was unfortunate enough to be within range flew backwards toward its companions, resulting in the ever reliable third law of motion to take effect.

_Smack!_

This led the second drone to spiral out of control and hit the wall, ending its life as the light from its eye faded. The first sphere met the same fate, crashing into the floor. Kevin was just about to laugh until he felt his entire chest go numb and his breath being knocked out of him. One of the spheres had tackled him while he was distracted and it felt like he had just been hit with a bowling ball. Kevin did his best to catch his breath and looked up, seeing that the bots were charging up their shots and taking aim at his prone form.

He would have screamed or yelped, but he lacked the air to do so. But this was Kevin; he was not going to give up _that_ easily. He would be no better than Eddy if he did.

Instead, the jock rose to his knee and looked down at the wrench in his right hand. He smirked in between his gasp for air and tossed the three pound piece of steel towards the bot. Just as it was about to fire, the wrench made contact with its eye, effectively blinding it and sending it spinning into his friend, causing it to discharge its shot straight into the wall. The drone seemed to panic as it tried to focus its aim and turned to face what it thought was Kevin, given the little information is was receiving from its scan visor at the moment. It fired the charged shot and hit the intended target, which happened to be its remaining companion.

Taking advantage of the droids helpless state, Kevin got to his feet, ran to get his wrench and with a mighty swing-

_Whack!_

-he smashed the droid to the ground, effectively ending its life as its now destroyed red eye faded to grey. The only sound that could be heard in the chamber was Kevin's deep breaths and the sound of the door unlocking after the droids had been effectively eliminated. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked to see that his shirt now had a little hole in it, something that earned the destroyed bot another whack.

"You're lucky my mom knows how to stitch. You metal dork." After he rubbed his sore back and chest, Kevin made sure that the other droids would not be getting up and made his way up the ramp to the door. After going through another orange corridor, he went through the next door that led into a dark green room. He then gave into his exhaustion and slumped on the nearest wall to sit down; giving him a chance to get his breath back. If anyone else was around, Kevin would have dusted off his shoulders and kept on marching with his head held high.

However, being alone changed the rules. His hands were shaking as he took off his hat, letting his shaved head get some air. The jock was in a state that he thought he would never be in. He was scared. No, he was _terrified._

"Calm down Kev. Get it together man." He rubbed his head as a headache began to set in, adding more even more frustration on top of his stress. He could have_ died_ in there. Those metal dorks could have turned him into a pile of ashes with those freaky weapons of theirs. It was a good thing they were so incompetent in their attempts to end his life, seeing as how a pre-teen boy had managed to beat them to death with a nine inch wrench. Speaking of his weapon, Kevin tucked his arm into his sleeve and spit on it, shining the somewhat scratched tool to a mere shine. The more he thought about it, the more confident he actually felt.

They should have killed him, but they didn't. That was right! He showed those metal dorks what for and he had no time to worry about what _could _have happened. He got to his feet with a new wave of confidence fueling his body and, with an adjustment of his hat, he was on his way to find another time machine, picturing the beating he would give to the Ed's being the source of his smirk of determination. Nothing could stop his march through the bright green room full of almost chest high crates.

"This stupid ship better have a snack machine." He grumbled


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two:**

**The Drone Ballet**

"This just sucks."

When we last left Kevin, he was full of seemingly infinite confidence. He could take on the world, and then some, if given the chance. He would snag a time machine, beat up those dorks for luring him into this place, and then he would woo Nazz with his muscular body. However, it would seem that the Alimbic Cluster had other plans for our hero.

Currently, he was standing in front of a dark blue, holographic map of sorts trying to make sense of the series of images displayed. He was not having any luck, to say the least, seeing as how it just looked like a bunch of rectangles with lines connecting them. Giving one last look at the blue wall of nonsense, he sighed and turned towards the door less passage way to his right. Going backwards was not an option. Even if there was another shortcut back there, Kevin was not going to bother climbing over those stupid over sized steel crates again. Who in the world needs boxes that big? Made out of _stee_l no less?!

"Geez, you think that since this place was run by a bunch of science dorks they would at least know how to make a map-WOAH!" In the middle of the jock's rant, he did not seem to notice that a small downward ramp and a drop awaited him on the other side instead of the usual stairs. The drop was not that bad but Kevin's patience, what little remained, was wearing thin at the crazy architectural design of this station that seemed to get more annoying as he went further in.

"Okay, first I am going to find the dork that runs this place, beat the snot out of him and _then _I'll find a time machine!" Kevin kicked the wall in anger and ignored the blaring pain that had accompanied that action. Just as he was about to stomp down the ramp he had unintentionally landed on, he seen something that set the warning alarms in his head blaring. Floating a few feet away was another one of those droids, or so it seemed to be. It looked different than the last ones. Instead of being completely covered in metal plating, this one seemed to have a glass dome for a body and arm length tentacles dangling from its floating body. The inside the "head" of the thing held what looked to be some kind of red gel. Kevin gulped at the thought of it being its brain.

Due to the design of the creature, Kevin could not tell if it had spotted him yet and, if not, he preferred to be gone before it did. Just as he descended the ramp with wrench in hand, the bot stopped floating around aimlessly and halted all progress along its random path. This action made Kevin freeze with his wrench at the ready, just in case the stupid thing got any bright ideas.

Silence reigned for at least a minute as Kevin, very slowly, inched down the rest of the ramp. This action did not seem to please the creature and it very slowly began to levitate towards him, as its wire like tentacles swayed slightly in the opposite direction of its path.

Kevin pointed his wrench at the creature and waved it, as if trying to scare the thing off.

"Make one wrong move and your scrap, dork." The jock spat as he wiped some of the sweat that was pouring off his forehead. This did not halt the brain jars progress, however, as it continued the very slow decent towards the paranoid boy. Kevin's fear began to wane as he realized how much of a threat this thing really posed: Next to nil.

"You can't be serious" He thought that this thing would eventually wise up and shoot acid or fire or something. But no, it just floated around like an anti-gravity balloon with tentacles. And a jar for a head. Even so, he still did not want to risk getting near those tentacles, seeing as how some kind of strange goo was leaking out of them. Still, a boy can have some fun.

Kevin chuckled and began to run around the room a bit, teasing the semi harmless creature. "Geez, my grandmother goes faster than you." Kevin then realized how clichéd that sounded "When she's asleep!" After laughing at his own joke and the things inability to catch him, Kevin sighed as he quickly got bored of how stoic the thing was. Insults were not really fun if the thing you're mocking cannot even speak. Well, the fact that it was a robot also kind of got in the way. So, Kevin waited until the thing got within swinging range and-

_Whack!_

-ended its poor, meaningless existence with a quick hit of the wrench. He had hit the "jar" looking part and, as expected, some red goo splattered all over the place. When this happened, the thing just dropped to the floor like a paper weight, showing no more signs of life. Good thing too, seeing as how it had fell right at his feet and he would just up and soil himself if the tentacles had suddenly latched onto his leg.

As he looked at the splatter, he was glad that he didn't get any of the stuff on him. The metaphorical brain of the creature had splattered all over the floor and on some parts of the wall. The problem is that those places were now sizzling like an egg. As Kevin watched, the goo began to sizzle and dissipate, leaving behind burn marks on the greenish-grey metallic floor.

Luckily, only a little had gotten on his wrench and the burn marks were pretty noticeable, it being a stainless steel tool and all. Heh, so much for "stainless".

"Something tells me that this baby is going to need a serious polishing when I get back." He rubbed the wrench with the sleeve of his shirt at least five times but the singe marks refused to leave. He sighed and put the trusty tool in his pocket then started to look around for another door. It did not take long to find the next one, what with it being in front of him and all. However, something had caught his eye that rested to his left, behind another one of those force field walls.

It looked to be some kind of weapon. If not, it was sure one impressive piece of pipe.

It was an arm length gray colored tube with some specks of green here and there. The barrel was split to where you could see the gray nozzle inside. It looked rather old and seemed to give off a 'beta' feeling. Well, one look to the handy dandy little data pad, which rested right next to the crate on the wall, revealed absolutely nothing in its current state.

"Why doesn't this stupid ship have a translator or something?" He rolled his eyes and tried to let it scan his hand, like the monitor at the landing pad did before. Unfortunately, consistency did not seem to be a priority on this ship.

"Come on, you stupid thing!" Kevin looked around for any sort of button for the crate, but luck was not on his side this day. He growled and began to walk away, that is until he remembered the obvious.

"Well, duh." He pulled out his wrench and gave the helpful pad a couple of whacks, busting the monitor and causing a few sparks to fly. After a few seconds, he heard something power down and seen the wall fade from existence, leaving the tube like weapon exposed and ripe for the taking.

He approached the propped up weapon and looked it over. Behind the field it looked unappealing; up close it did not look much better. It looked like something the Ed's would make for one of their scams, instantly making Kevin dislike it. However, he was not going to get by with his wrench alone and his paranoia was telling him that things from his worst nightmares were waiting deeper within this stupid station. Besides, he did not want to risk his precious tool getting a scratch.

"Guess I could keep it and hang it in my room, that'd be pretty sweet." This all sounded nice in his head, but he had no idea how to carry the stupid thing. It was too big to fit into his pocket and he was not going to lug it around the rest of the way.

After looking the thing over he noticed a hole in the end of the device. The inside of was pitch black and he could just barely make out some futuristic looking doohickeys.

Seeing nothing to stop him, and not hearing any growling sounds coming from the inside, he slowly stuck his arm into the pipe shaped thing. So far his arm had not been bitten off, that was good. Soon, after what seemed like five minutes, his hand had reached the end of its uneventful journey. The inside was empty and kind of cold against his skin. But, it was a perfect fit and it kind of made him feel awesome in a way. A dorky way, that is.

"So…uh…does this do anything or what?" He waved his arm around and pointed the barrel towards the closest wall. For some amusement, he pointed his finger at the wall and acted like he was squeezing the trigger on a toy gun.

"Pew."

_POW!_

To say Kevin jumped out of his skin would have been a horrendous understatement. As soon as the weapon had actually fired something, he let out a girly yelp and jumped back, yanking the arm cannon off like it was covered in spiders and threw it about five feet away. It hit the ground with a loud-

CLANG!

-and rolled into the orange force field wall. With how it looked, he was surprised the thing had survived hitting the floor. Kevin spent the next five minutes trying to recapture his breath and manliness. He looked towards the wall he had shot and seen that a familiar luminescent, yellow stain dirtied the green wall.

"You have got to be kidding me." Kevin whispered to himself and slowly crept towards the weapon, picking it up slowly as if it was going to jump and eat his face. Luckily, such a thing did not come to pass. Cautiously, he slid the thing back on and looked it over, seeing several buttons resting on the right side of the cannon. They appeared to be useless, however, as a lot of them seemed to be stuck and unwavering in the face of Kevin's mighty fingers. Except for one of them that seemed to be shaped like a..missile…? Curiously, he pushed it.

As soon as the button was pushed, the body of the gun began to change dramatically. Part of the main body on the right side of Kevin's arm opened up and a stripper clip containing several cartridges sat that waited to be fired. He also felt something else open up at the bottom and seen what looked to be grip of some sort.

"Awesome…." Kevin felt his chest tighten up in excitement and took hold of the grip, realizing that it felt oddly comfortable for such an old looking…arm cannon. Or whatever it was.

_Might as well give her a test drive _Kevin smirked and looked towards another part of the wall. Gripping the handle with his left hand, he took a defensive stance and once again pointed his finger, imagining that he was pointing at one of the dorks seemed to make this easier.

As soon as his finger bent, a barrage of missiles flew out of the cannon, being restocked by the rather inconvenient stripper clip. Unfortunately, these things had a heck of a kick, and Kevin felt his left hand going numb and decided to end it before something worse happened.

"Okay, that's enough!" Kevin yelled and straightened his finger, causing the chaotic barrage of explosives to come to a halt. After coughing for a few minutes, the yellowish grey smoke cleared. He wiped his stinging eyes to see that the wall only had some stress and scorch marks.

"Seriously?" Was all he could say. After rolling his eyes and the missiles had restocked themselves, Kevin returned the cannon back to normal with a single press of a button. He sighed and turned back towards the crate it had once occupied.

The inside of the box had little left to offer in the ways of helping our egotistical hero escape, it did not even have the audacity to include an instruction manual for the weapon, something Kevin kind of wanted to see, seeing as how this baby probably had more functions on it. _Maybe it even had a time machine locator?_ He thought with venomous sarcasm. Doubtful, but a boy could dream.

The jock stepped out of the crate and seen another one of those blue, holographic, "maps" sitting on the wall to his left. He scoffed at the idea of looking at another one, seeing as how the last one had been so helpful as to tell him what he already knew: absolutely nothing. So he turned towards the passageway that lay across from the left of the ramp he had descended.

Another door awaited his approach; however, this one was a different color than the others. Instead of light blue, the door was dark orange and seemed to be locked. At least that is what Kevin thought anyway, something that required him to bump straight into it to figure out, but they say learning first hand is the way to go. Kevin growled in contempt and banged on the door with everything but his teeth.

"Come on! You have got to be kidding me!" Kevin stepped back a bit and fired a volley of shots at the immovable object, but you know what they say about those. All this did was give the door a nice luminescent, yellow shine. And it made Kevin even angrier.

"Alright you stupid door, let's do this the hard way." Kevin then rethought his sentence "Well, the _harder_ way...I guess." He then pressed the missile button again and let it do its little song and dance before finally destroying the door. At least, that is what he thought would happen. In actuality, after one of the missiles had struck it, the door showed no signs of damage and returned to its normal, boring old blue color.

He cautiously approached the door and kept his baby at the ready as the automatic door opened up, revealing nothing but an empty hallway. Disappointed by the constant lack of company, he made his way down the small, orange hall with a grumble.

"At least those stupid missiles work."

* * *

After taking a small breather in the connecting passage, Kevin stepped into the next room and seen that the path had split. Well, it was more like a Morton's fork.

In front of him were two blue monitors that hang about two heads higher than him and seemed to be totally useless, like almost all things colored blue on this station. To his right was, surprise, a dead end that held nothing whatsoever. With a groan that threatened to turn into a growl, Kevin turned to his left and kept his weapon at the ready for any more dorks who dared to hinder his progress.

The blue monitored occupied metal halls soon turned into something looking like an amateur skate ramp with metal tubes hanging overhead. Kevin sighed. This place sure loved to torture him with memories of home, did it not? He missed his bike and his board. And Nazz. And beating up those dorks.

Just as he was about to pass under the first of three giant pipes of orange goo, he heard a sound that he could swear was Eddy laughing. Oh wait; it was the sound of those drones again. Eh, same level of annoyance. Three of the cursed things were hovering towards him, their eyes already red after seeing that the green shirted menace had one of their ships prototype weapons.

Kevin readied his cannon and fired a volley of shots that successfully connected with the lead drone, effectively blowing it to smithereens, causing the other two to start using something that at least resembled tactics. The one to Kevin's left made a beeline towards the jock, charging its shot while it did so. Kevin instantly ended its pitiful and stupid life. The one on the right, started to rock rapidly to the left and the right, as if trying to avoid shots that were not being fired yet. Kevin then ended its stupid life. Hey, the definition of tactic can be stretched however long the attacker desires.

"Geez, it seems like you dorks are getting dumber." Kevin then shrugged with a cocky grin on his face. "But, with my awesomeness and this little baby," Kevin tapped his arm cannon "I can see why you dorks lost." Kevin laughed and continued down the premature skate park with a dorky space theme. He pulled himself up the small, yet inconvenient, ledge and was faced with yet another dead end. Kevin was just about flip out and utter every curse under the sun, but was relieved to see a door to his immediate right.

Instead of being triangular in shape, this door looked to resemble an elevator door of sorts. Despite the change in design, he still felt apprehensive as he approached it.

_BANG!_

After hearing the loud crash and jumping like a scared cat, Kevin turned towards the dead end he had almost cursed at earlier and took aim. His breath heavy and his heart thumping, he stood there for a moment with his weapon at the ready and waited for, perhaps, a giant squid to come through the wall and point him in the direction of the closest bathroom. Hey, he thought anything was possible at this point. He took a deep breath and grasped his pocket where the wrench lay, giving him a small bit of courage. After putting his bravado mask back on, he turned back towards the door.

"This place gives me the creeps."

* * *

Kevin went through the door and was surprised to see how big the room that lay behind it was, about the size of a small gymnasium as a matter of fact. This would have been somewhat nostalgic, if not for the design of the room. It looked like almost every other room on this stupid ship. To his right looked to be a human sized piece of orange wall sticking out of the ground, which made Kevin automatically bookmark it just in case more of those drones showed up. Next to that was a large cylinder that had two smaller circle shaped platforms resting vertically from it. Resting above said platforms, and starting on the cylinder, was a steel bridge that stretched to both sides of room.

However, the big eye catcher was the big blue..gem that rested on the big steel cylinder.

"What in the heck?" Kevin started to approach the centerpiece, but jumped in fright when he heard the door close forcefully behind him. He turned and took aim to see that the door had locked behind him with another one of those evil red triangles, giving him a friendly reminder that he was going to be stranded in here for a while. He, for the millionth time that day, groaned and continued towards the giant, supposed, jewel.

Upon getting closer to the geometry themed décor, he was sarcastically surprised to bump into another one of those stupid, blue, holographic screens that sat at the base of the towering cylinder. Kevin humored himself and placed his hand on the rather tall monitor. It greeted him with the same message as before, something about 'homo saypens' and it displayed some English text for him.

_Alimbic Artifacts_

_ARTIFACTS are encoded with program data unique to the STRONGHOLD_

_PORTAL. Three ARTIFACTS are necessary to activate the PORTAL._

"...What?"

Portals…? Artifacts…? What in the world were these dorks thinking when they wrote this bunk? Oh right, dork stuff. You know, cause they're dorks. Kevin scratched his head as his freeloadin' friend named confusion ate the rest of the ice cream left in his head. This was just getting tedious, and there was _still_ no mention of a time machine! Kevin took his trusty cannon and shot at the screen, hoping to at least disturb its programming or something for daring to not have any good news for him. But, seeing as how it was a hologram, it was completely pointless.

"You know what would be great right now?" Kevin asked the air and mockingly and waited for a response "If YOU DORKS GOT SOMETHING RIGHT FOR ONCE!"

He adjusted his hat and turned towards the circular platforms. He had just about had it with this stupid place. Scratch that, he had enough of this place as soon as he got here. Every map was useless, unreadable, or just completely blank. To top it all off, every monitor had information that was completely useless to Kevin. Alas, he wasn't going to get anywhere if he just sat and complained like Double Dork, after all, who else was going to get home and show off his new toy?

His attention, while lacking due to impatience, turned once again to the big "gem" in the center of the big cylinder. It was about the size of a car and about as wide as one as well. Seeing as how the door he saw on the other side of the cylinder had the mocking red triangle of isolation marked on it, he decided that his best course of action was to climb up to the narrow bridge and poke at the jewel for the rest of his life.

"Might be able to take a piece off of the stupid thing and make some sweet necklace for Nazz." He smiled as a feeling of warmth rushed over his being. Even thinking about that girl was enough to cheer him up. After thanking his lucky stars that he had some meat on his bones, the jock scaled the platform and climbed on the bridge, coming face to face with the large...not jewel. Upon closer inspection, the shovel chinned bandit noticed that...something...was inside of the big blue red herring. It looked to be a rotating pyramid of sorts that was about the size of his head. Curiosity, and boredom, drew him towards the curious sight.

Approaching the thing led Kevin to hear a...radiant sound of sorts. IT kind of sounded like Rolf's annoying pig if its voice was heightened a few degrees. As soon as the red headed hat wearer got about a foot from the all important centerpiece, he began to hear a sound that might as well had been a truck speeding towards him.

He looked up to see four of those droids suddenly materialize out of thin air above his head.

"Oh crap!" Kevin instantly leaped onto the floor below and his adrenaline kicked in when he heard an insane amount of shots being fired right behind him. After doing a proper roll to avoid any hinders in his landing, he ran behind the piece of wall that acted as the perfect spot for cover. He poked his head out and was instantly set upon by another wave of yellow orbs. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his legs from shaking as he poked his gun out to blindly return fire.

"Come on Kevin, don't panic man. Don't-" His head rolled to his left when he seen that one of the droids had moved behind his cover and was charging its shot for a quick demise. He let out a small scream as he rolled out of the way and returned fire, squeezing the trigger as hard as he could. However, instead of firing a volley, this led a big blue ball of hot energy to build up on the end of the nozzle. In fear that it would blow up in his face, Kevin released the trigger and the basketball sized bundle of energy flew towards the droid like a gift basket from the gods.

_POW!_

The poor thing exploded into a couple of a hundred pieces and Kevin quickly dove back into his cover as the remaining droids persisted in trying to widdle his cover away with their ineffective shots.

He took a little peek and noticed another drone had appeared and took the downed ones place. _Great, just great_. He once again popped out and took pot shots at them, killing at least two of the things. When he went to do it again, he seen that the drones had been replaced by two more.

_Oh, come on!_ He thought and went to lay against his cover in order to formulate another plan, but as soon as he got comfortable, he seen that the things were actually beginning to tear through his safe zone, proving that if you hit something with a hammer long enough it will begin to crack.

"You have got to be kidding me man!" Kevin lay lower into his cover, being pretty much on his back at this point, as he began to try and figure something out. Alas, his anger was bubbling like a witch's stew, causing all rational thought to go out the window. He pressed the missile button, letting the arm cannon get all of its modifications out of its system before he jumped out and let out a yell that carried his anger across the entire facility.

"DOOOORKS!"

The room became illuminated with blue and yellow lights as the cries of a lonely jock echoed throughout the station. They just kept coming and Kevin kept firing. Missile after missile tracked its targets and reduced them to pieces of scrap, littering the floor with pieces of wire and random electronics. He huffed and he puffed. He growled and he scowled at the bots as each one met their demise. After what felt like an hour had passed, it was finally over.

The shooting had ceased and a thin layer of smoke coated the entire room, with Kevin standing alone amongst the debris.

"Yeah….that'll teach ya'." Kevin turned and kicked one of the scraps into the wall, causing a very stress relieving sound to echo within the room. He looked down at his trusty arm cannon and pressed the missile button, once again returning it to its natural state. After doing this, he looked himself over, seeing that his shirt was coated in ash and had been ripped in several places, exposing part of his chest to the lukewarm air. Ignoring this, he began to gush.

_Man, I am so awesome! _What started out as a smirk turned into laughter and eventually settled into a condescending smile. _Oh wait, I knew that already._

Remembering what he was doing in the first place, Kevin looked up towards the cylinder and seen that the mock gem had vanished, leaving the rotating pyramid unguarded. With a resolving deep breath and some more pull ups, he made it up on the bridge.

Cautious, he looked around for any sign of those stupid drones, and, upon being comfortable enough to press forward, he reached out to grab the head sized pyramid. How he was going to carry it and why he needed it were two worthy questions he did not have an answer for. However, as soon as his finger made contact with the foreign object, it disappeared, vanished into the smoky air. This left Kevin, for the millionth time that day, stumped and confused.

"Um…okay then." He then heard a familiar sound come from the northeast side of the room and seen that one of the doors was unlocked. Well, there was some good news at least. So, on he marched, leaving this somewhat useless room behind.

* * *

After leaving the room, Kevin came across-shocker!-more of those drones! With a mighty groan of annoyance, he dispatched of the floating menaces before they even spotted him. He continued down the hall and felt a wave of familiarity wash over him. This place looked exactly the same as the hall he had left not ten minutes ago. He shrugged; at least this meant nothing could surprise him. As he approached the small ledge that waited at the end of the tunnel, he heard something…growling.

"Shut up, you stupid stomach." He rubbed his gut and realized just how hungry he was. He was not starving, but his stomach was begging him for some substance.

_Grrrrrr…_

His throat was dry as well. He wondered for a moment what that orange stuff would taste like. After briefly pondering this, he came up to a new door and was not surprised to see it locked. Not having anything nice to say, Kevin groaned and punched the door, hoping to get some response from it. Failing in the regard, he turned around to lean against it.

"Wonder if I could just blast through it with these missiles. Yeah that outta-"

But that train of thought was quickly derailed when he suddenly caught wind of something foul in the air. He pinched his nose and retched.

"Geez, smells like Rolf's shed!" Looking around to locate the source of the Ed like stench, he looked on his right to see yet another dead end with a few more of those metal crates scattered about. Just as he was about to complain some more, he felt something drip on his shoulder. He jumped at the feeling of being touched by something and looked up. Then he looked down. Then he did a double take. He could swear that he seen something opening up there. Were those teeth?

"GAAH!" Like a scared cat, Kevin leapt towards the dead end and a loud 'thump' was heard in the spot he once stood. Turning around quickly, he gazed at the nightmarish creature.

It was a green, bi pedal, goat sized…dinosaur...? Upon its failure of not landing on its prey, the creature turned around to look at the jock that lay prone a few feet away. Its maw slowly opened, letting the drool run from its teeth and onto the grey floor. Kevin was trying his best not to have a heart attack at the mere sight of the beast, but seeing it slowly approach with its mouth wide open made him want to pee himself. That is, if he had the liquids to do so.

Kevin was still laying on his back, pushing himself away from the scariest thing he had ever seen in his life. The creature seemed to be taking sadistic glee in this, as it slowed to a stop then kept going, just to see his reaction. This put them about fifteen feet apart. It was then that Kevin found himself up against the wall with sweat pouring down his face and a frog in his throat.

"N-Nice..dinosaur..heel boy." He whimpered out in between gasp and then he gulped as he seen huge amounts of saliva dripping from its gaping jaws. Yep, this was it. He was going to die here. Being dinosaur chow was not how he imagined going out. It was then that his life began to flash before his eyes. He saw the other kids, cheering him on as he rode his bike. He saw the Ed's crash and burn with their stupid, fake rocket car powered by a popcorn machine. He saw Nazz…smiling at him. He smiled, feeling his confidence soar to new heights. Yeah, he was not going to go out this easy.

Upon seeing the creature preparing to leap and devour his face, Kevin quickly stood on one knee and rolled towards the creature, leaving it flying and crashing into the wall with a roar of confusion. Kevin then immediately unleashed a volley of shots at the thing, staggering it for a good few seconds and letting him get his distance. Even though this thing did not have eyes, Kevin could tell that he was making this thing mad. It let out another roar and prepared to leap again as Kevin backed up next to the door.

If this thing did not telegraph itself so dramatically, Kevin would have already been dino food. Seeing it prepare, Kevin activated his missile launcher and jumped to the left, lining up his shot as he did so. However, the poser dinosaur was not having any of this. Seeing as how there was no wall to delay it, it leapt directly at Kevin, who was too busy waiting for the missiles to activate, could only raise the cannon in defense. The powerful jaws of the creature chomped down on the rather old prototype, doing its best to yank the weapon from its soon to be meal, but found it rather difficult as the green shirted mammal yanked back.

"Come on, you dork!" Kevin taunted with false bravado "Is that all you got!" Truth was, Kevin's strength was waning and if this kept up, he would lose his only means of defense. He noticed that the cannon had finished converting to missile mode and was ready to fire. If only it had bit down on the barrel, that would make things so much easier. Fortunately, his left hand was still free and a very special tool rested in his left pocket.

With adrenaline acting as his only means of energy, he reached in his pocket and felt his hand grasp cold steel. A smirk made its way onto his face and he smacked the dino in the face with all his might. This made it flinch but did not get it off. He kept on hitting it and on the fourth hit, just as he was about to give in, it released its grip with a roar of pain. This gave Kevin just enough time to shove the barrel into the creature's mouth and squeeze his finger, causing a barrage of missiles to enter its gullet.

The dino did not even have time to scream. Well, it did let out some kind of growl just before its head exploded into green paste. With its head gone, its body slumped to the ground in a pool of its own blood.

Kevin was left gasping for air as his heart did its best not to run a marathon in his chest. _Dude…that was…man. _He wiped the waterfall of sweat that was pouring down his face. He looked around slowly as he took in the fact that a lot of the room had changed color. Green, just like his stained shirt, was everywhere. Pulp, blood and bits of the poser dinosaurs head lay all around him and even on his shirt and black pants. It was the first time he had seen so much gore….

Kevin felt his stomach reel and he gagged, doing his best not to throw up. However, he did not have the strength to resist and he promptly went over to the wall of the dead end and vomited what he could, which was not much. He heaved some more before he wiped his mouth with his stained sleeve, whimpering slightly.

"Okay, you got this Kevin. Come on; pull yourself together you wimp…!" Kevin turned his head slightly to the right and seen that the door behind him was now unlocked. With his back to the creature's body, he inched along the wall to the door and stepped through the portal, wiping as much of the blood off him as he could.

"Don't worry Nazz, I'm coming home." As soon as these words were uttered, Kevin slumped against the closest wall and passed out, his snores being the only thing giving the room volume.

**Hey guys! I would like to thank you all for reading, reviewing and having the patience of saints! I mighty appreciate it, what with me being a lazy bum who procrastinates like...a lot. Also, yes Kevin is using the Beta arm cannon from the Metroid Prime trailer. I just felt like letting him have the original would be kind of weird, given that the Ed's have all of Samus's gear with them. So...yeah! Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great day.**


	4. Chapter Three

_Chapter Three:_

_Metal Slugs and Spirals, Oh My!_

_A small rock lay forgotten and alone on a playground. _

_The summer sun scorched every orifice on its surface, leaving only the bottom as a cool sanctuary for the smaller critters that dared not penetrate the surface, les they risk being baked to a fine crisp. _

_Besides that, the rock did not do much but sit and wait for its destiny to come. What stories did it have to tell? Where did it come from? Had it been there since the dinosaurs roamed? More importantly, what had it been through? _

_These questions and more were certainly not on Kevin's mind as he kicked the unfortunate rock into the nearby sandbox, leaving the underground critters to scatter for a moister and cool spot._

"_Stupid rock." _

_The young boy made his way over to the nearest bench and parked himself on it, in a mood that was certainly nowhere near good. Questions were on every part of his mind, 'Why do I have to be here' being the most prevalent of them all. His parents had insisted that he spend some time out of the house, seeing as how they had spent the past two days unpacking and getting comfortable in their new home. So, while his father went to his new job and his mother made dinner, Kevin found himself inconceivably bored and decided to act on his parents constant pestering. Unfortunately, this place was not like the city at all. There was no big park where all the other kids went to play, only some very small and mediocre playground with barely anything to do. _

_The most interesting thing was that, on the way over here, Kevin could have sworn he saw some bald kid talking to a piece of wood. When said boy caught him staring, he simply waved at Kevin, with nary a care in the world as he marched down the lane of the cul-de-sac. He still felt the anxiety creeping over him as he began to realize that this place was indeed his new home. No tall buildings, no hustle and bustle of the traffic. It felt like a part of him had been left behind. _

_So, there he sat, with elbows resting on his knees and his head buried in-between the upturned palms of his hands, thinking about how boring this place already was. The worst part was that there was not even anyone on the playground. At least that meant no one could see him mope around like a loser. _

"_Hey there, dude!" _

* * *

"Nazz?"

Kevin's eyes fluttered open and, with blurry vision, he could barely make out a few windows that rested on the far side of the room, showing him the blackness of the night sky. Huh, he must have woken up in the middle of the night again. That was a rare occurrence indeed. Then, a realization; why did his bed feel so cold and why was he sitting up? This question was soon answered by a familiar gesture that had an unfamiliar feeling accompanying it. As he went to scratch his head, Kevin felt something cold and hard touch his temple. He slowly looked down and groaned at what he saw.

It was the arm cannon he had picked up aboard the very real spaceship.

"So, I guess that wasn't a dream then." Kevin banged the back of his head against the wall, feeling the coldness of the metal rub against his shaved head. "Man, this bites." With his eyelids heavy and a general feeling of laziness overcoming him, the red head's eyes began to shut again. Wait a minute…

"Hat? Hat!" Before his panicked shouts could devolve into an Eddy like tantrum, Kevin felt something pressing against his back and looked to see that his frequent accessory was sandwiched between his body and the wall. With a sigh of relief, Kevin put his trusty hat back on, feeling an immense wave of relaxation take hold of him. He then checked his weapon, seeing that it now had some new graffiti on it. Well, if teeth marks count as graffiti. The jock smirked at the memory of felling the beast who dared to impede his progress; there was nothing on this ship that he could not handle. Unless they have a T-Rex on board somewhere, then he would just ball up and cry.

His short, nostalgic dream came rushing back to him, making him sigh heavily as he got to his feet and wiped off some dust that had used him as a resting place. He then stretched his aching muscles and groaned as he looked over the room.

Out of all the rooms he had visited so far, this one would get a five star review out of the height alone. The lack of enemies was also comforting but the fact that his next exit was about ten stories above him, which would require him to climb up a series of nine orange, fan blade looking platforms that were attached to a big cylinder in the center of said room, would definitely raise some complaints from future tenants. This would bring his five star review down to a measly two.

"Good to know these geniuses know what an elevator is." He growled and rubbed his sore chest then stared at the first platform out of many that awaited him. The closer he got to it, the less he thought he could reach it; it was about as high up as Ed if he was wearing Eddy as a hat. The platform was also about as wide as the two combined as well.

Kevin looked around the very empty room and did not notice anything he could use as a step, so he took a deep breath and jumped, grabbing the platform with his free hand. However, this proved to be a pointless endeavor, seeing as how all he could do was dangle around like a monkey.

"How in the heck is anyone supposed to climb this stupid thing?" Kevin asked as he dropped down, feeling his sore chest berate him for his previous action. Ignoring this, he once again made a jump for the platform but did not even come close to it the second time. Nor the third, not even the fourth jump let him reach the ledge. Growling like a very angry puppy, the jock looked down at his arm cannon.

"Stupid piece of junk, why can't you…" He then smacked himself "Well, duh." With a roll of his eyes, Kevin removed his trusty weapon and gently tossed it up the very patient, humming platform. With his right hand now free and sweaty, the green shirted red head finally managed to pull himself up, with his chest feeling like it was about to explode. Clutching his chest with a groan, he looked up at the remaining platforms.

"One down….eight more to go." With a sigh of contempt, Kevin armed himself and slowly made his way up, yelping every time he leapt to the next platform, almost falling several times. To his cynical surprise, nothing had appeared to try and kill him by the time he was at the final platform, something he had been anticipating since he had started this unplanned stunt. It appeared that he had a little bit of luck left after all.

As he stood on the ninth platform, that rested about ten stories from where he began, he realized that he had miscounted. There were actually ten platforms in total and the final one, which acted as the vertigo inducing doormat for his exit, was a very uncomfortable twelve feet away. If that was not bad enough, it was a little higher up than the one he was resting on. Without his sore chest and the workout from the previous platforms, this would have been an easy jump. After all, he had jumped way worse than this. Of course, fate was against him this day.

While he pondered his next move, Kevin removed his arm cannon once again and prepared to toss it. His breath shaky and his forehead coated in sweat, he gritted his teeth and felt his knees rattle. If he missed, he would have to go all the way back down and, the way he felt at the moment, he sure was not feeling up to that kind of labor. He released a deep breath and gently tossed the weapon but immediately regretted it. A sharp gasp and a small clang rang through the room and, as time itself slowed down to a crawl, the weapon bumped into the door and rolled back a few inches, stopping about two feet short of falling off.

"Man…this sucks." While he was relieved his weapon had made it across safely, he was still at odds with how _he_ was going to make it. He weighed his options for a minute or two as he did his best to try and mentally measure the distance of the jump. He chuckled to himself and turned his hat around.

"Great, I'm turning into a dork." He then looked down at the very small floor "Well, better that than dead, I guess." His legs sore and his chest aching, Kevin prepared for a run and go. If he made it, then he would prove that he was the coolest kid on this station. Heck, on Earth even. If he missed…well he was not planning on failing anyway. Second place was for losers. And dead people, he guessed.

With those thoughts floating through his mind, he felt a small surge of confidence and took off. As soon as his foot crossed the "Ed" length of the platform, his feeling of confidence had vanished and the urge to stop overtook his body. With a loud yell, Kevin made it to the end of the platform and leapt. His hands outstretched and his chest rising, the boy closed his eyes and prayed that his hands made contact with something. The floating feeling that flowed throughout his entire being vanished as soon as his arms overshot the ledge and landed near the center of the platform, where his arm cannon rest about a foot away.

Clawing like a mad cat, the green shirted mercenary opened his eyes at the last second and seen his hands sliding farther away from the ledge. Mercifully, he felt the adrenaline kick into his system and he flailed his legs around as his screams of panic turned into growls of exertion. With near herculean strength, Kevin managed to finally pull himself up from the near death experience and hugged his arm cannon, immediately arming himself and taking aim at the door, trigger at the ready. Holding this position for at least a minute, he relaxed and took a much needed deep breath.

"Ha..ha….yeah…who's the man?" His confidence resurfacing, he took off his hat and wiped the torrent of sweat from his forehead and took one last look at the spiraling tower of platforms. He hawked a loogie toward the floor below in contempt and grinned as he waited patiently for the door to open.

* * *

After taking a small break in the orange connecting chamber, Kevin found himself face to face with yet another set of blue monitors that hang two heads high. Acting as if they did not exist, Kevin looked down the two paths before him and went down the left path. His footsteps echoing through the humming halls he, surprise, encountered another dead end. But this particular one had a small present for the jock. A door! It was a different color than the rest though, a lime green, just like his shirt.

"Please be a mess hall, please be a mess hall." Kevin closed his eyes and began to imagine a delicious dish of Salisbury steak, peas, some nice buttery corn, and pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes awaiting him on a nice piece of fine china. Just like his mom made it. With a happy sigh, the red head took a step towards the door and….nothing. He stepped back and stepped toward it again. It did not budge. With the drool that decorated his lips now gone, Kevin groaned and resorted to pounding on it. Like a slab of concrete that was being pushed by air, it stood steadfast against his assault.

"Alright, that's it." He activated his missile function and stepped back, hitting the door with every missile in the clip. The smoke cleared and the door appeared victorious in its constant stalemate against the jock from the stars. Thoroughly frustrated, Kevin pulled his arm cannon off and slammed it on the ground with a roar of anger. Several loud **CLANGs** rang through the room as it bounced off the floor and rolled to a stop near the door he had come through just down the hall.

"Dorks and their stupid locked doors!" His stomach growled louder, seeming to express its anger along with him. He rubbed his empty tummy and groaned, looking longingly at the door as he imagined the big buffet that probably awaited him beyond the locked, green portal to his food related paradise.

With a cynical sigh, the angry red head went to collect his weapon, grumbling all the while.

_SKRREEEEE-BOOM!_

In that instant, all sense of frustration and agitation made itself known as Kevin yelped like a little girl and scurried over to his weapon and took aim at the empty, bending hallway before him. With the horseshoe shaped design that seemed to have been copied throughout the whole facility, he could not pinpoint how close the actual crash had been without actually going to check it out. Feeling less than eager to do this, he resulted to other matters to discover the sounds location.

"I can you hear you dorks! You better come out or I'll do more than pound ya!" He fired a few shots at the ceiling for intimidation value, causing the shots to echo a little bit. Sure, he would never go _that _far when it came to the Ed's, but he was tired, hungry, and very frustrated, he was willing to use some scare tactics if it meant getting him off this trash heap faster.

Silence reigned for what seemed like an hour and Kevin's quick breaths did not seem to slow down in the least. He highly doubted that the Ed's were actually on this ship and, if they were, then they were probably already space food. Those three wimps could not even fight off a bunch of neighbor hood kids, let alone a bunch of robots and goat sized dinosaurs. He chuckled to himself as he imagined Eddy running in terror from a single one of those drones. Alas, his echoing threat did not seem to attract any attention.

With a hesitant sigh, he slowly walked around the bend and right past the door he had come through. Up ahead, the hall morphed into another one of those amateur skate parks he had been through twice already. Kevin had to give them credit; they sure did beat Johnny when it came to laziness.

As he neared the morphed hallway, he looked to his left and seen another one of those invincible green doors that was bathed in a blue light from a little strobe light that rested above, bathing a section of the hall with its strangely comforting light. He looked toward it for a second before shooting at it and going on his way. It looked like he was going to need a much bigger gun in order to even dent those stupid green doors.

As soon as he passed under the first pipe-arch thing, he saw a yellowish green glow emanating from around the bend of the hall and a sort of crackling sound, kind of like something you would hear at a power plant or something. Then, he heard a voice. For the first time in what felt like years, he heard another person's voice. At least, he thought it was a person. It sounded awful…mechanized though.

"Gargagg wulfurtardra vas provurt!" Upon hearing the booming gibberish that the unknown life form was spouting, Kevin quickly switched to his missile function and crept under the second pipe arch. Whatever the heck was waiting behind this curve was not something that was going to shake his hand or offer him a free time machine. Instead of being a baby and creeping up on him like Double Dork, the red hatted delinquent instantly jumped out, keeping his finger straight out and ready to fire.

Then he saw what must have been the scariest thing he had seen all day. Scratch that, the scariest thing he had ever seen, period. Even scarier than that pretender of a dinosaur.

Standing before him, looking to be about seven feet tall, was a green and black...robot…or something like that. It looked to be wearing a black helmet adorned with four green eye holes and its whole body was adorned with a black armor that covered his chest, shoulder and his legs, leaving his green biceps and weird, jelly neck exposed. It had a mouth piece that looked similar to a filter that adorns a scuba mask and its skin kind of looked kind of like green gelatin. It then turned to look at him, causing the boy to freeze up and almost wet his pants.

"Wulfurtarda? Grasjagrady!" Kevin stood steadfast in the face of the creatures nonsensical yelling. Well, he had no choice but to stand steady, seeing as how his legs were frozen in place from the pants wetting terror that was the lime jell-o robot in front of him.

"Alright Ed's! G-get out of that stupid getup and take your beatings like m-m-men!" He yelled as his voice quivered like a child who got caught with a hand in the cookie jar. An uneasy stalemate occurred as the two warriors stared each other down. In response, the creature did something that not even Double D could explain in a two hundred page essay. In the blink of an eye, the thing morphed its entire body into what appeared to be a giant, green and black caterpillar that looked to be about a foot shorter than the jell-o monsters regular form. After accomplishing something that Kevin had not even begun to process yet, it stared at our jerk jock of a hero and slithered into a hole that rested behind it, leaving him with his jaw dropped and his mind warped.

"Dude…I…" The jock whispered in shock as he pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes. If he was gripping his pocket any harder, then he would have fused his wrench with his black shorts.

_I am sooo going to need a therapist after this… _He lifted his hat and adjusted it back to its usual position and, watching that metal slugs exit hole like hawk, he sat down and hugged his knees as another frustration induced headache began to take hold. _Let's see…if I turn back, then all I would be doing is getting some unneeded exercise. _His stomach growled again and he grimaced as he gripped his sore chest.

_If I go on…then I'll probably end up in that green dorks stomach or somthin' _He sighed deeply and looked over his arm cannon. _So…do I go out like a man or starve to death. _He closed his eyes and tried to weigh the pros and cons of both. Sure, he could go for it and try to take that thing on. But in his current condition, he was lucky if he would last a minute against a titan like that.

His thoughts then drifted to Nazz and the other kids. He thought of when he and Rolf went go-karting with Johnny. A small smile formed when he remembered Rolf's difficulty in even starting the miniature car and how it took him and Johnny ten minutes to teach him how to make it move. He then laughed when he remembered when Nazz told him what transpired when they were gone. Something about golden pants and other assortments of fake gold merchandise that the Ed's made to scam them, heck, he even heard that they almost got five buck out of Jim-bo.

Oh how he wished that he was back in the cul-de-sac. Playing some basketball with Rolf and doing some of those weird aerobics that Nazz had told him about with her. Riding his bike…man he was getting sappy. If he would have showed this much emotion around them, then he would lose all of his self respect.

Still, the grin never left his face as the thoughts of them cheering him on echoed in his mind. Then, a very simple thought made itself clear in his mind after all of that reminiscing.

"That dork might know where a time machine is on this stupid ship!" He jumped to his feet and made his way toward the small entrance. Taking off his arm cannon and tucking it under his arm, he proceeded to slowly crawl into the unknown passage, ever cautious just in case that slug thing crossed his path again.

* * *

"What the heck is this thing?"

A few minutes into Kevin's crawling based expedition, our hero stumbled upon an anomaly. To be specific, it was a small, arm sized, floating glass capsule like thing that was surrounded by a blue aura. You know, just the average anomaly. For a second, the red hatted explorer just stared at the floating capsule. For some reason, he felt a sea of relief and relaxation washing over him just from looking at it.

Curiosity winning over his caution, he reached out to touch it, not knowing what to expect. Surprisingly, unlike the strange upside down pyramid that he had found earlier, this thing did not disappear on contact.

_Whoa…this feels like…a sauna or somethin'. _Despite the weird analogy, Kevin could not hold himself back from grabbing hold of the floating object, its blue aura following behind it as he held it closer. It was about as wide as Eddy's head but it weighed next to nothing. Maybe it was because of how incredibly strong he was? Before he could revel in the pride of this fact, his immense amount of relaxation seemed to double as he cradled the glowing capsule, making him realize a very important thing:

"Man, my knees are getting sore."

Kevin propped his hand behind him and sat down in the very cramped space. With his arm cannon setting up on the wall a few inches away, he placed the capsule between his legs and looked for a way to open it. The capsule ended in two black, screw on-looking caps and, taking a wild guess, he began to try and twist one of them off.

With a little bit of effort, a little bit equaling to "quite a lot" in his current state, he managed to succeed in twisting the cap out of its previous position. As soon as he accomplished this, the cap began to move on its own and, defying more than at least ten laws of reality, floated a short distance in front of him and opened itself up.

Before he could question life itself, the blue aura that was previously coating the tank began to pour into him, as well as a white aura that had come from within the previously closed tank. As soon as this process started, Kevin began to panic and tried desperately to reach his weapon.

Sadly, it was too late for him.

"Come on man! This isn't fair!" A sentence. Well, two sentences were all that was said by the jock who, after going through many insane trials and tribulations aboard this strange, archiving vessel, finally met the end of his suffering…..then he began to feel the best he had ever felt in his life!

Looking himself over, Kevin found that, not only were his sore muscles healed, he seen that his shirt had been repaired! As a bonus that still puzzled him, he did not feel weak or hungry anymore. He felt like he did almost every day: awesome and ready to take on the world!

"Well, that was convenient….And totally awesome!" He would have done a dance of joy, or even giggled like a school girl. But that was for dorks. And for people who were not currently in a small passageway that required crawling. A smirk firmly implanted on his face, the green shirted jock sat there for a second, testing out his used to be sore limbs, and continued his crawl through the small passageway.

Not even a minute later, near the end of his long, cramped journey, Kevin heard a familiar buzzing sound coming from the exit that waited just ahead. The perfect ambush spot for that green dork. Well, it would have been if he had not let those stupid droids do it for him.

Arming himself, Kevin crept his way along very slowly with his free hand.

"You dorks think you are soooo smart?" He whispered as he poked his head out. He looked ahead and seen that the hall was just like one he had just left, yet another one of those stupid skate park halls. He looked ahead and seen one of his many drone friends floating ahead near one of those pipe arches.

Donning a crazy smile, Kevin lined up his shot while slowly stepping out of his rabbit hole, so to speak. He fired a few shots and ended its existence. Before he could even think about doing a victory dance, he seen a familiar yellow ball zoom past his head and impact the ground in front of him, barely missing his head.

"Dude!" Catching only a quick glance at his two attackers, the black shorts wearing adventurer ducked right back into his hole as the two drones maneuvered above and, thanks to the see through floor that was hopefully plasma proof, Kevin could observe their every move before he made his. One good thing on this ship and it was the floor. At least those "Alimbic" dorks did _something _right.

_Alright, I don't think these morons can read more than one move at a time. Seeing as how they have to stop and charge their shots like that. _Planning was never really Kevin's forte, except when it came to stunts and parties for his friends, but while it was manlier to go in and plan on the fly, it was an option he could not afford to take. Well, at least no one would be around to see him being a wimp.

With his orange tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Kevin crept out again, making extra sure to keep an eye on the two troublemakers above him. As soon as his head was sticking out, he went into a roll and, after landing on one knee, quickly used his other leg to spin himself around. The droids, who seemed to have short term memory, did not notice the jock until one of them had been reduced to junk. This left the remaining one confused and angered, as judging by its red eye and how it began to charge a shot.

Unfortunately, for the little droid, Kevin had already destroyed it before it could even form an opinion or charge its little beam. He then proceeded to quickly observe the rest of the environment to see if anything else was waiting to give him the red carpet treatment. Luckily, and somewhat unfortunately, he was alone once again and he pulled himself up to the upper floor.

Letting out a yawn and a long, much needed stretch; the green shirted athlete adjusted his hat and took a small stroll down the curving hallway. Not even four steps into his leisurely walk, Kevin stumbled upon something he was surprised to see: A regular, good old fashion, triangle door. He quickly leaned against the wall next to it, as if preparing to breach it.

"Bet that green loser is waiting just behind this door for me." He gritted his teeth and quickly jumped in front of the now open passage, giving a loud "Ah ha!" as he did so. However, his counter ambush was foiled when he seen that a green and brown connecting passage way awaited him. Rolling his eyes at his own hasty action, Kevin ditched all of plans of an ambush and simple charged right at the door ahead which hopefully contained his current nemesis.

"Alright you dork! Tell me where the….time..machine…is."

Behind the previously feared door was something even worse than one hundred of the armored titan. Even worse than one hundred Eddys. It was a copy and paste of the same spiraling platform room that he had almost died in not even two rooms ago. Not only that, but that glass dome jelly fish had made a comeback as a six man band rather than a solo act. They swarmed around the six blue tinted platforms, making Kevin's shoulders droop lower than they already were.

THUMP!

The thump heard round the room echoed for a second, but no longer than needed as the low hums of the six floating fish bowls continued to harmonize with each other. The green shirted jock's arm cannon rolled a few inches away from his dangling arms, stopping as it bumped into his black sneakers. A low growl emitted from the intergalactic traveler and it soon turned into an opera of pure, raw emotion.

"You have got to be kidding me!"

**First, I would like to apologize for waiting a whole year before updating this story. But, that is like a speed run for me, to be honest! Anyway, I would like to say that I will be posting updates on my profile regarding when a new chapter of this story, or edFAMOUS, will be published. **

**Second, I know that having Kevin find an energy tank the tunnel that Kanden goes through is kind of a deus ex machina, but I figured that since he missed the first one in the room before the orange fan room, I figured that it would be a good place to put one. By the way, energy tanks will not give Kevin more energy; it will simply restore him to full health and make him complain less about hunger. It's kind of like I am making this up as I go along…..which I am totally doing. **

**Thanks for reading, reviewing and being patient! **


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